All Guest Voices Articles

These are exciting times with ever-more powerful smart systems deployed in industry after industry. But as systems grow more complex and interconnected, they can become harder to understand and to control. “Our highly complex IT systems must become much more automatic and resilient, capable of self-healing when failures occur and self-protecting when attacked,” CIO Journal Columnist Irving Wladawsky-Berger writes.

Add to descriptive analytics, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics, a fourth category, automated analytics, writes CIO Journal Columnist Thomas H. Davenport. While systems that take action “automatically” based on the results of analysis have been around for years–you don’t think humans review price changes for airline seats, do you?– they are becoming increasingly necessary in a world where customers want real-time responses.

The degree to which technology will alter or even eliminate knowledge worker jobs over the next decade is a topic of hot discussion, with some experts saying new jobs will be created or invented to offset job loss. Guest Contributor Gary J. Beach wades into the arguments.

Today’s startup economy is starting to resemble a Thomas Piketty white paper. “It turns out that startups have their own version of the wealth gap between the rich and superrich,” CIO Journal Columnist Irving Wladawsky-Berger writes, with an ever-shrinking percentage of startups hoarding the deals and funding rounds necessary for growth.

The skills developed in a DevOps and continuous development culture can serve financial services companies well in the auditing process, says Guest Contributor James DeLuccia. “Just like Agile and DevOps practices, auditors require a collaborative approach with clear communication and transparency to help the business achieve its goals,” he writes.

The bad guys are still winning, but the good news is that there are new tools available that make it easier for companies to identify malicious actors and their tricks. CIO Journal Columnist Thomas H. Davenport looks at one such application, provided by threat intelligence firm Recorded Future.

Now is the moment for CIOs to make a meaningful impact on their organizations, embracing new practices that help deliver technology faster and more responsive to business needs, Guest Columnist Mike Pearl writes.

Engineering and management schools are not doing enough to prepare students according to a number of recent studies, but the failure is not happening where one might expect it. Universities generally do a good job on teaching hard skills, but they don’t do so well with the softer competencies, including communications, teamwork and systemic thinking. It’s the use of those types of skills, writes CIO Journal Columnist Irving Wladawsky-Berger that will guide the best executives towards arriving at more creative, out-of-the-box solutions.

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About The CIO Report

CIO Journal provides time-pressed CIOs with a definitive destination for the most relevant news and analysis, to help them connect the dots between technology trends and business strategy. Its team of reporters and editors—aided by the resources of Dow Jones and thousands of other premium news sites—focuses on the use of technology as a tool for business growth. Contact our editors with news items, comments and questions at: ciojeditors@wsj.com.